Target transgender bathroom policy ignites protests, debates

About a half a dozen Lake County residents protested at a Mount Dora Target against a new policy, which welcomes transgender employees and customers to use the restroom or fitting room that matches the gender they identify with.

About a half a dozen Lake County residents protested at a Mount Dora Target against a new policy, which welcomes transgender employees and customers to use the restroom or fitting room that matches the gender they identify with.

Lori Pitner was a regular Target shopper, but now that the giant retailer has proclaimed its support for transgender restroom rights, the Tavares mother plans to take her business elsewhere.

She's afraid the policy will enable sexual predators to gain access to more victims.

"The evil people who take advantage of children every day are going to see this as an opportunity," said Pitner, 53, a conservative Christian who has organized several recent protests against the Target in Mount Dora. "Men going into the women's restroom are going to have more protection than our kids."

Pitner is among 1.2 million people, and counting, who have signed a petition to boycott Target. Sponsored by the Mississippi-based American Family Association, the petition says the bathroom policy "endangers women and children by allowing men to frequent women's facilities."

Target caused a firestorm April 19 when it announced that employees and customers could use the restroom or fitting room that corresponds to their gender identity.

Target did not answer telephone or email inquiries from the Orlando Sentinel, but its website — under a rainbow version of its bulls'-eye logo — affirms its commitment to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.

Jerry Fallstrom / Orlando Sentinel

Angie Smith, 42, of Tavares, right, holds a sign on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, protesting Target's new bathroom policy along U.S. Highway 441 in front of the Target store in Mount Dora. Next to her is Sondra Hulette, 51, of Mount Dora.

Angie Smith, 42, of Tavares, right, holds a sign on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, protesting Target's new bathroom policy along U.S. Highway 441 in front of the Target store in Mount Dora. Next to her is Sondra Hulette, 51, of Mount Dora. (Jerry Fallstrom / Orlando Sentinel)

Its action came less than a month after the North Carolina governor signed a bill restricting the use of public bathrooms and changing rooms to people of the same biological sex. The U.S. Department of Justice last week warned the state that the law violates the U.S. Civil Rights Act.

Dozens of corporate executives have urged the repeal of the North Carolina law, PayPal aborted plans to expand into the state, and Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam canceled concerts.

In Florida, the Marion County School Board, by a 4-1 vote April 26, began restricting restrooms and locker rooms by biological sex after a "devout Christian" parent complained that his son saw a girl in the boys' restroom at a high school, according to the Maitland-based Liberty Counsel, which represented the father. The superintendent in March, after seeking legal advice, told the principal to let the transgender student use the restroom of her choosing.

Gina Duncan, the transgender-inclusion director for Equality Florida, sees the "hateful" bills as a way of attacking transgender people, who she said are among society's most vulnerable.

"We have found that people fear what they don't understand, and we recognize that these hate groups are truly finding traction with this dialogue," said Duncan, 60, who lives in Orlando and testified against the Marion schools resolution.

Among the companies that have taken a similar stance as Target are Barnes & Noble, Starbucks and Hudson's Bay, the parent of Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th, which has two stores in the Orlando area.

It wasn't long ago that transgender people were all but invisible to the public, save an occasional exception. The late U.S. military veteran Christine Jorgensen in the early 1950s raised eyebrows as the first widely known transgender person. In the past few years, Caitlyn Jenner, who won an Olympic gold medal in the decathlon as Bruce Jenner, and a handful of others in the public eye have shined a spotlight on the lives of people who feel they were born the wrong gender.

Abraham Hamilton, a public-policy analyst for the American Family Association, said his group doesn't think anyone in the transgender community is dangerous but rather that sex offenders will take advantage of Target's policy to peep at or molest women and girls.

"In Target's effort to accommodate a very, very small percentage of the American population, they exposed a much wider percentage of Americans to harm, and we find that to be a misguided policy," Hamilton said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center considers the American Family Council and Liberty Counsel anti-LGBT extremist groups that have equated homosexuality with pedophilia and immorality. The council, which denies the label, several years ago organized a boycott of Home Depot over its support for LGBT-pride events.

"We are not anything about hate or bigotry or discrimination at all," Liberty Counsel spokeswoman Holly Meade said. "We are a Christian organization, and this whole [bathroom] issue is just protecting women and children."

But Stetson University Professor of Law Louis Virelli said there's no evidence that sexual predators will commit more crimes because of the policy — or that Target is making it easier for them to do so.

"We have plenty of laws in place to protect victims of assaults, and there's no statistical and no anecdotal connection between transgender people using restrooms of their choosing and assaults in any way, shape or form," he said.

Deborah Goldring, a professor of marketing at Stetson University in DeLand, said that although some people disagree with Target's position, the company will benefit by appealing to investors, customers and employees who share its values of diversity, inclusion and social responsibility.

"The restroom policy is the outcome of standing by all these attributes," she said. "It shows leadership, respect, responsibility, trust and fairness."

Not to Pitner, the Lake County mom.

"Moral issues always come back to God and what God says we need to do," she said. "There's a right way to go to the bathroom and there's a wrong way to go to the bathroom. It's just that simple."